New York provided another commentnon “progress” in a concurrentnexhibition of photographs and etchingsnat The Donnell Center of the NewnYork Pubhc Library. These depictionsnof ornamental manhole covers are thenwork of an indomitable photographer,nHertha Bauer. Featured in The GuinnessnBook of Records for her 1,200nphotographs of such covers, Bauer celebratesnthe art of the idiosyncraticnworking class.nShe hopes to collect at least onenexample of every design on New York’snmanhole covers before the city, busynas ever, replaces them with “morenpractical” identical covers. ThroughnBauer’s photographs, generations ofnartisans and artists bring their messagenof symmetry, poignancy, and humornto anyone who bothers to glance downnat the world of beauty beneath ournfeet. ccnCaroline Morgan writes on the artsnin New York. Photo by Hertha BauernLetter FromnMongolianby Ewa M. ThompsonnGoing First Class FromnKarakorum to MoscownIn August-September 1985, I travelednas a faculty lecturer with a group ofnRice University alumni on a journeynfrom Mongolia to Moscow by way ofnSiberia. The trip began in the villagenof Khujirt near Genghis-Khan’s capitalnof Karakorum. From there we wentnnorthwest to the God-forsaken Ulan-nUde and the capital of Eastern Siberia,nIrkutsk, and then westward to Krasnoyarsk,nfamous for its labor camps andnmore recently for the radar installations.nNext came the matchbox city ofnNovosibirsk and its designer version,nAkademgorodok, then Omsk (wherenCORRESPONDENCEnFyodor Dostoevski spent four years innhard labor for political crimes), Tyumen,nand Sverdlovsk. Appropriately,nwe traveled across the Urals in thendarkness of the night so that no onencould take pictures of the landscape innwhich the Soviets make the bomb.nFinally came Andrei Sakharov’s homenof Gorky, and then the centers of thenempire: Moscow and Leningrad.nMore than seven centuries ago, ansimilar journey was undertaken by thenMongol horsemen who beat all recordsnin the speed with which theynmoved across the enormous Siberiannplains and established an empire. Itncovered the territory of the present-daynSoviet Union, and its hallmarks werencontempt for the individual, glorificationnof the state, and a drive to unifynthe world under the scepter of thenKhans. At that time, Moscow paidnhomage to the Mongols; now, it is thennnother way around.nEven in Mongolia there remain fewntraces of Genghis Khan, the Emperornof All Men, and of his powerful heirs.nThe great Mongol victory over thenprincipality of Rus (the grandmothernof Mother Russia) with its capital ofnKiev is barely mentioned in the museumsnof Ulan Bator. Moscow does notnwish to remind its former masters ofntheir days of glory. Those Mongoliansnto whom I spoke seemed not to knowthatnseven centuries ago the territory ofnthe present-day Soviet Union had itsncapital not in Moscow, but in the vastnvalley near Khujirt, now home tonsheep and horses.nTwo centuries later, the Mongolsnwithdrew, and the Russians took overnSiberia. In some ways, not much’ hasnchanged in this part of the world.nSiberia is immense passivity, unwashednfaces, uncombed hair, andnFEBRUARY 1986141n